


Dehydration Sensation

by decadent_mousse



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Dehydration, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-14
Updated: 2014-12-14
Packaged: 2018-03-01 12:30:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2773085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decadent_mousse/pseuds/decadent_mousse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermann doesn't handle heat well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dehydration Sensation

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this in the summer while my brain was slowly melting and dribbling out of my skull and just now finished it up! It took awhile, probably because of the brain-melting issue. 
> 
> I would like to dedicate this to [a certain bee](http://geniusbee.tumblr.com/) who enjoys Hermann-centric h/c and shamelessly encouraged me to write this. Also, many thanks to the rest of the dorkateers (you know who you are), who kept me company while my brain cells were screaming during the nastier heat waves.

Hong Kong was experiencing one of its nastiest summers to date, and unfortunately Hermann was right in the middle of it.  

“Geez, it’s hot in here!”

He supposed Newton was in the middle of it, too, but despite all his moaning and groaning he seemed to be handling it rather well.  Better than _he_ was, as reluctant as Hermann was to admit it.  He was not fond of hot weather, or the humidity that accompanied this particular heat wave.  He’d already shed as many layers of clothing as professionalism or his modesty allowed for, but even so he felt like he was boiling alive.

More than once, he’d felt as though the air was pressing down around him, suffocating him.  He steeled himself against the nausea and dizziness and pressed on.  He had important work to do, after all.

Newton had been sighing heavily off and on for the past hour, and Hermann couldn’t tell if that was he was trying to get Hermann’s attention or was having some sort of adverse reaction to the heat.  Finally, Newt peeled off his gloves and tossed them in the garbage.

“How you doing over there?”

“I’m fine,” he muttered, stretching to the right to add to an equation in the corner of his board.

He heard Newton’s footsteps approach his side of the lab.

“Uh, I think you should probably come down from there.  Just for a little while!  You’ve been up there for hours, man.  I’m hungry.  Are you hungry?  Let’s go get lunch.”  

Hermann scowled.  "I _told_ you, I'm fine."  

The words had barely left his mouth when he felt another wave of dizziness.  He adjusted his position on the ladder in an attempt to steady himself until the room stopped tilting, and suddenly he felt oddly weightless, like the world had disappeared out from under him.

“Whoa, hey, are you o– Oh, _shit_ –”

Hermann collided with _something_ , and hazily realized that to collide with something he had to have _fallen_.  However, aside from the dizziness – which was alarmingly persistent, this time – and some pain in his hip at the sudden, jarring movement, he didn’t feel like he’d fallen off a ladder.  He was rather certain more pain should have been involved.  

He was suddenly dimly aware of Newton’s arms around him.

"Oh my God, you scared the shit out of me, dude!  Are you okay?"  
  
He felt like pointing out that the fall hadn't been particularly pleasant for him, either, considering _he_ was the one that fell, but he was having trouble articulating much of anything.  
  
"Y-you're not okay, are you?  It's okay, buddy, I got you.  Let's get you to a chair, alright?"  
  
Hermann couldn't do much more than nod in response.  The room around him felt strange – fuzzy around the edges and indistinct, as though he was there but not really _there._  He didn't even remember walking to the chair Newt guided him towards, he just was suddenly there, sitting with the room tilting uncomfortably around him.  
  
"Whoa, there.  Here, lean back a little bit."  
  
Newton's worried face suddenly came into focus.    
  
"You look like crap, man."  
  
"Thank you very much, Newton."  
  
Newt gave him a crooked grin.  "Well, you must not be, like, _dying_ or anything if you've still got enough energy to wanna strangle me.  You're looking pretty rough, though, when's the last time you drank any water?"  
  
Hermann shrugged.  It couldn't have been long, then again, he had been rather engrossed in his work.  
  
"Yeah, okay, hold on a sec, I’m gonna go get you a glass of water, alright?  Just– just stay right there.”  He hurried away before Hermann could protest.    
  
He couldn't tell if Newton was joking or if he sincerely expected him to attempt to wander off, but Hermann was very uncertain of his ability to stand at the moment, much less _go_ anywhere.  His legs felt like rubber.

A moment later he felt the soft swoosh of cool air as it began to circulate in the stifling room.  And a few moments after that, Newton reappeared with a "glass" of water.  The glass of water was actually a _jar_ of water – a familiar-looking jar.  

“Newton.”

“Huh?”

“This isn’t one of the jars you use for tissue samples, is it?”

“What?  No!  Of course not, dude.”

Hermann took a tentative sip of water.

“Well, I mean, I washed it, so it doesn’t really _matter_.”

He sputtered and choked.

“No, hey, it was just a joke!  I’m joking!”  Newt rubbed and patted his back soothingly.  “It’s 100% clean, I promise.  I haven’t used it for anything, it was a spare one I had lying around and I was having trouble finding a good-sized glass.”

“Define ‘good-sized,’” Hermann muttered.

“Big enough to hold enough water to rehydrate a really stubborn mathematician?”

He rolled his eyes and took another sip of water, then several more once his body seemed to process that _yes_ water was good.  He _was_ very thirsty.  He hadn’t drunk anything in hours.  His hip had protested – severely – after climbing down his ladder multiple times to get a drink of water, and he couldn’t very well hold a glass of water, the ladder, and his chalk all at the same time.  

He grimaced as his stomach abruptly started churning again.

“Hey, take it easy.  Don’t try to drink it too fast.”

It was too late, it was already coming up.  He had a humiliating moment of realizing he was going to either a) vomit on Newton or b) vomit all over the floor – because he certainly wasn’t going to make it anywhere close to the bathroom before he–

Suddenly there was a trash bin in front of him, and he grabbed at it desperately a split-second before he threw up.  There wasn’t much.  He hadn’t eaten since the night before, so it was mostly just bile and what little water he had managed to drink a few moments ago.  That didn’t stop him from heaving repeatedly until his stomach muscles cramped and nothing more was actually coming out.  

He felt something cool and damp press against the back of his neck.  He hadn’t noticed Newton leave again – that was vaguely troubling – but he must have, and he’d come back with a wet towel, which he was dabbing up and down Hermann’s neck.  It was a pleasant feeling.  Newton's fingertips brushed across the fuzz of his undercut, and they were cool and damp like the washcloth.    
  
"You're hot."  
  
"So I’ve been told."  
  
Newt made a sound that was a cross between a snort and a laugh.  "Joking!  Joking is also a good sign."  
  
"Mmm.  What would a bad sign be?"  
  
"Uh, not sweating?  How long have you _not_ been sweating, dude?"  
  
Hermann shrugged again.  He hadn’t actually noticed the absence of sweat until Newton had said something about it.  In the morning, he had felt as though he were _drowning_ in his own sweat, but he didn’t feel sweaty now – he felt bone dry.  His eyes felt hot and scratchy and the only moisture he felt to any considerable degree was the water from the washcloth trickling down his neck and back.  Even the water he’d drank a few moments ago already felt like it had evaporated without a trace.  
  
"Maybe I should take you to medical."  
  
"You will do no such thing," Hermann  grumbled.  "I'm fine."

This whole mess had been disruptive enough already without getting the medical staff involved.  He wasn’t feeling well, but he certainly wasn’t feeling badly enough to warrant a trip to the infirmary.  
  
"You're dehydrated, Hermann.  Really, _really_ badly dehydrated."

Newton's fingers moved upward, gently running through his hair.  
  
Hermann sighed softly and reached up, grasping his wrist.  "Newton, I'm alright."

He wrapped his arms around his shoulders and Hermann turned into the hug, leaning against him.  The edge of Newton’s tie tickled his nose.  

“I thought the air conditioning was broken,” he murmured against Newton’s shirt.

“It is, I went out and borrowed a fan from one of the supply rooms.”

Hermann’s grasp of time must have been suffering as well, because it hadn’t seemed as though Newton had been gone long enough to retrieve a fan from another room – and he hadn’t noticed him leaving the lab, either.

“Borrowed?”

“Okay, so I might’ve… broken in and taken it.”

Hermann glanced upward sharply and almost immediately regretted the movement.  His vision swam and he found himself leaning on Newton a bit more heavily.

Newt rubbed his back.  “You okay?”

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

“Rubbed your back?”

“Stolen an item from storage without going through the appropriate channels.”

“What are they gonna do?  Fire me?  I’d like to see them try to find someone to replace me.  Besides, I was just looking after my lab partner.  Pretty sure ‘make sure Dr. Gottlieb doesn’t die of heat stroke’ is a good enough reason to skip filling out a requisition form.”

“Thank you.”

“No sweat, man.  You’d do the same for me.”


End file.
